1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of virtual computer systems, and more particularly, to a system and method for enabling one type of virtualization environment to use a virtual disk image file created by another type of virtualization environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
A virtualization environment is a software application that implements an environment in which virtual machines can run. A virtual machine (VM), also referred to as a virtual computer, is a software implementation of a machine (computer) that executes programs like a real machine. Virtualization provides the ability for multiple virtual machines to run together on the same physical computer. The virtualization environment includes a hypervisor that executes on the physical computer and manages the various virtual machines. Each virtual machine may execute its own operating system and may appear to a user of the virtual machine to be the same as an independent physical computer.
A user may interact with a virtual machine similarly as if the user were interacting with a physical computer. For example, various software applications may be installed on the virtual machine, and the virtual machine may enable the user to launch the software applications, provide input to the software applications, and view output from the software applications identically as if they were executing on a physical computer.
A virtual machine typically maintains its own set of files, similarly as a physical computer would, such as operating system files, application program files, data files, etc. Whereas the files of a physical computer are typically stored on a hard disk, files of a virtual machine are often stored in one or more virtual disk image files.